


The Analyst and The Hacker - Shaun Hastings/Reader

by NintendoWiierdo



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Abstergo, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Animus Team, Assassin's Creed 3, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hacking, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Maybe - Freeform, Modern Assassin's, My First Work in This Fandom, Reader-Insert, Shaun Hastings is bae, as usual, idek what im doing with these tags, oh well, reader is a hacker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11538951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NintendoWiierdo/pseuds/NintendoWiierdo
Summary: He sometimes liked to think that perhaps in another life he would have met you, invited you out for drinks, spent hours talking about anything and everything… But no. This wasn’t another life, he was stuck with this life lived in the middle a war and he couldn’t afford to think like that.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I hope you enjoy this, it's my first Assassin's Creed fic so I hope it's all okay! <3

You sigh, annoyed, neglected bowl of cereal on the desk going soggy. You rub at your eyes and sigh again, leaning back on your perch. It had taken you a solid two days to get as far past this particular firewall as you were currently and you still weren't any closer to the information you needed. The animus had been running into some technical problems of late, and despite her initial protests, Rebecca now admitted she had no idea how to fix it. Something Shaun saw fit to bring up at every opportunity. Ass. That was when you had the genius idea of hacking into one of Abstergo's  _beyond supremely_  secret servers and... Obtaining their most recent Animus blueprints and diagnostics programs. This was where your problems had started. Hacking was your job in that merry little band of Assassins, whether it be into Abstergo to take information or into private servers to manipulate security systems, and you enjoyed it. Mostly.   
With nothing to do until the Animus was up and running again, Desmond and Rebecca had gone topside to hunt for some more supplies. Having to constantly stay underground made opportunities to restock few and far between, not to mention the fact that according to the ever pleasant Papa Miles, you had to find somewhere different to buy supplies from each time, so whoever went could be gone for over a day. You had no idea where the two of them were headed this time, but they left not long after you began the laborious task of hacking Abstergo, leaving you alone in that creepy, glowing cave with an oddly silent Shaun. Great. It’s not that you didn’t like the man, quite the contrary, however your frequent banter had a habit of getting in the way of work occasionally and with no Rebecca to scald him, you presumed he would be insufferable. For the most part you had tried to ignore him and focus on the task at hand, which was proving to be more trouble than it was worth in your _humble_ opinion, but you continued nonetheless. Shaun had left you alone in the beginning, much to your surprise, continuing silently with his own work at the station across from yours but as the hours passed rapidly by, fingers never slowing their pace as they raced across the keyboard, you could sense he was becoming more and more...worried? Agitated? More… _something_ by your ceaseless working. He even suggested in an oddly _not Shaun_ tone that you take a break and get some rest. Not trusting that your voice wouldn’t betray just how tired you actually were, you looked away from the screen briefly to glare at him and that was that. Instead, he took it upon himself to deposit meals on your desk, something he normally had kittens whenever you did, going on rants sounding something like " _How many times have I told you not to eat at the desk... you could spill it and everything would be lost... why are you laughing this is not funny... take your bowl of instant **disappointment**  and eat it away from the valuable information._" You never did understand how he could be so adverse to the wonders of instant ramen, but after many an hour spent debating the topic you had both silently agreed to disagree.    
   
And that was how you came to be where you were, sighing with exasperation, the bowl of chocolaty cereal mush abandoned next to you and tired eyes screaming for a moment’s respite. You heard him approach you from behind and place one hand on the back of the stool. "How’s it going?" He asked somewhat tentatively, eyes scanning your face like the data analyst he was.   
   
"How’s it going? Oh just peachy," You deadpan, turning to face him properly, comment possibly coming out sharper than you meant it to "no really, this is a walk in the park." You see him raise his eyebrows at you as he takes a small step back, hands raised in surrender. "Sorry..." You say, sighing again and realising for the first time just how tired you actually are.    
   
"Its fine," he says, smirk evident on his voice. You watch as he retreats back to his work station, picking up a book and flicking idly through it, still smirking as he does. You shake your head in exasperation and turn back to the computer. The sooner you get this done the sooner you can sleep. 

 

**

 

You furiously typed in more code, hit the enter key with possibly a little more gusto than necessary and... Yes! After roughly 15 more hours of two steps forward, one step back with only a brief break to wolf down a sandwich and a cup of coffee you finally managed to get past the security and into Abstergo. You jumped up to stand at the computer, barely registering your stool toppling backwards and clattering to the floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Shaun screamed in a high-pitched voice, having been fully immersed in his reading up until that point. “What the bloody hell was-“ You cut him off with a shush and a vague wave of a hand over your shoulder. You hear him scoff and approach you, thinking that maybe after all this time you’d finally lost it, but the noise gets caught in his throat as he watches you complete the familiar process of taking files and transferring them to your own hard drive, working as best you could to cover your tracks as you went. A renewed adrenaline rush fueling you, the last steps of the process flew by and in half an hour you were finished. You look to Shaun who had been watching over your shoulder and give him a triumphant little smirk, one which he returns with ease. For a few moments you stay like that, watching each other before Shaun clears his throat awkwardly. “Well done,” he starts, gesturing to the computer and, while he sounds like he means it, you can sense the sarcastic ass on the horizon. “Maybe now you can take a break and stop that incessant typing. You know I’m a light sleeper, I’ve hardly got any shut eye at all.” You stick your tongue out at him and close the laptop screen, stretching.  

“At least I’ve been getting work done and not just… reading.” You reply, smirking again. “Are you gonna call Becca and let her know the good news or am I?” His eyes narrow at the fatigue obvious in your voice and it doesn’t take long for him to respond. 

“I will... You look awful, get some sleep.” He states as he takes his phone from his pocket, purposely avoiding looking you in the eyes. You nod and stand up, rolling your shoulders. You both walk away from your work stations by the giant force field and towards the entrance of the cave, where he leaves you with an awkward goodnight so that he can call the others. 


	2. Chapter Two

-Shaun’s POV- 

  
“Hi, Becca, it’s me. She's done it.” He says into the phone, smiling as he hears the woman on the phone give a triumphant whoop.  

“Awesome!” she responds, “We'll be back in business before we know it. Listen, we had to go quite far out this time, we can’t be sure where they’re watching so it looks like it’ll be at least as day before we're back, maybe. Plus we passed a very inviting bar on the way here... Just keep up what you’re doing until we get back, alright?” 

“Oh, sure,” he scoffs, “I’ll carry on babysitting the hacker in the cold, creepy cave while you two are out in the world. Having fun.” He replies without missing a beat. Rebecca laughs, taking his snarky response as an affirmative and ends the call, leaving him staring at his phone in frustration. It wasn’t that he minded remaining behind with you, generally he enjoyed your company. He admired you in a way he wasn’t sure before that he could. He admired Rebecca too, of course, he saw her as a somewhat _annoying_ little sister, but you… He sometimes liked to think that perhaps in another life he would have met you, invited you out for drinks, spent hours talking about anything and everything… But no. This wasn’t another life, he was stuck with this one lived in the middle a war and he couldn’t afford to think like that. He shoved his phone back in his pocket, shivering. It was early December and when it wasn’t raining, wind whistling past the cave entrance, a thick layer of snow coated most of the scenery. The weather almost constantly managed to dampen everyone’s spirits. “At least it’s not too bad inside.” He thought, bitterly. As he made the trek back inside, cold hands shoved deep into his pockets, he found himself not for the first time longing for those months spent in Italy. It had been warm. “ _I shouldn’t have taken that for granted.”_

It didn’t take him long before he was greeted by the familiar sight of the giant, luminescent force field and all of their technology littered about and looking totally out of place. He had yet to decide whether their computers were more or less advanced than some of the technology they shared the room with. He glanced at his watch, sighing. 9.42pm. He already knew there was no point trying to get any more work done that night and could see from where he was that you had taken his advice and gone to bed. He shrugged his shoulders and decided to join you. “Not… in that way” he thought hastily, as if he needed to justify himself. Which was silly, really, and he knew it.

**

You had been with the group since September that year, assigned to the Animus team by William Miles himself not long after their arrival in Monteriggioni. Nobody knew exactly what you had been doing before, presumably working with a different team, but you never offered up any information and nobody ever asked. That was the beauty of their line of work, a lot of what you did was on a need to know basis. He knew your name, of course, as did Lucy. They’d both seen it a few times when working with or coordinating other Assassin teams, though it seemed that you hadn’t stayed with one team alone for quite some time, your name had appeared all over the world. When he decided to do some digging, you seemed to pop up nearly everywhere and _especially_ where he least expected it. Then he was hit with a wall of almost _over_ _encrypted_ files. He respected that not all information on agents would be readily available but really, that was just _excessive_. He ceased his digging pretty quickly after that. Shaun had been skeptical about your addition to the team at first, Rebecca was fairly proficient at hacking, having used it to save Shaun’s life once before and so he failed to see why they needed an extra team member. He hadn’t exactly been courteous to you as a result, but then they went to the Colosseum Vault for The Apple and lost Lucy… and he could see why every team member counted, though he would never say it out loud. In truth, your addition couldn’t have come at a better time. It relieved them of any duties that involved hacking, giving Shaun more time to spend on his research and meaning Rebecca could focus her mind on the Animus and Desmond, and once William joined their little team, the workload was much more evenly distributed and things almost felt back to normal. Almost.

Shaun wandered over to the sleeping area. William had insisted that they not venture out too far from the main area in case they have to make a swift exit, so there wasn’t much privacy. Five camp beds were laid out in a rough semi-circle in between two of the towering stone slopes and there was a space in the center with some cooking equipment, boxes of food, and other supplies stacked up. He sat on the edge of his camp bed and looked over at you. You were lying on your side, facing the wall, and appeared to be fast asleep. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. It had been so long since he’d last had it cut… Slowly, he set about changing into his night clothes. It was only the two of you in the cave, William had left the same day as Desmond and Rebecca to retrieve the final power source, and you were definitely asleep so for once he changed without feeling self-conscious. In fact, the quiet in the cave had almost been unusual. With the near constant arguments, Williams obnoxiously loud snoring, the faint sound of music often drifting from Rebecca’s headphones, and Juno’s random appearances there wasn’t often a moment of complete peace. He buried himself in his sleeping bag, taking off his glasses and staring at the ceiling, all of a sudden not feeling remotely tired. It was moments like this that he found his mind drifting back to his life before all this madness, spent locked away researching crazy conspiracy theories, thinking that the secret service kicking down his door was the most he had to worry about… He was jolted out of his reverie by what sounded like a small cry. He sat up and began fumbling for his glasses, feeling his heart-rate increase. His eyes darted around the room, he couldn’t see anybody coming into the cave, but then his eyes landed on you. Of course… Your face was scrunched up and he had no doubt that your eyes were flitting around under the lids. Nobody had ever brought up the nightmares, they didn’t come that often but when they did… Moment of panic over, he untangled himself from his bedding and padded his way over to you, crouching by your side and almost hesitating. More often than not, the dreams ran their course and you returned to a normal sleep. Sometimes they had to wake you, but usually it was Rebecca that dealt with it. You had become close with her during your time with them, she was everybody’s sister, it seemed… He watched you for a moment, distress clear on your face, and it looked like whatever you were dreaming about was there to stay. Slowly, he placed a hand on your shoulder, calling your name softly until he watched your eyes fire open, staring at him with fear and confusion. You seemed to realise where you were after not long and your features calmed down. You sighed and ran a hand through your hair. Shaun moved his hand from your shoulder.

“You… were _dreaming_ again.” He muttered, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah… thanks.” You replied, sitting up in the bed and stretching, rubbing at your eyes with one hand. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only a couple of hours or so I think.” He states. You nod as if you had been expecting as much and began to unzip the sleeping bag.

“I won’t be able to sleep again now, might as well get some work done.” You say, voice laced with frustration. 

“Wait,” Shaun blurted, causing you look up at him, confused, as he shuffled back over to his own bed. He slowly pulled a laptop out of its case, gesturing it at you as he walked back over with his own sleeping bag draped over his arm. “I have an idea.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll try and update once a fortnight or so, though I can't promise anything haha. I feel like the end of the chapter was kinda weak this time but I'm not sure, let me know what you think... I hope the POV change was okay too, I'm planning on doing a few more chapters like this so if it sucked please let me know and I can change my plans XD. All the kudos and reads are really appreciated, thank you all ^-^


	3. Chapter Three

There was a lot you didn’t know about Shaun, or any of your fellow team members actually, but that was a given. Everybody had their secrets, little quirks they kept to themselves, but one thing you didn’t expect as he sat down next to you on the camp bed, pulling his laptop onto his lap and booting it up, was that he would have a hard drive full of late 90’s/early 00’s action movies. You raised an eyebrow at him, genuinely surprised. Up until that point, you’d have thought he was the type to spend the early hours of the morning watching conspiracy theory documentaries on YouTube or historical dramas maybe, you definitely didn’t expect him to cosy down at night with a nice cup of tea and _Bad Boys II_. Still, you appreciated what he was doing. He settled back, leaning against the stone wall and you followed suit as he picked a movie seemingly at random and before long the film started playing, sound echoing off the stone walls as you both sat there in a comfortable silence. You found your eyes flitting to the cave entrance, half expecting the ever-joyful William to pop up out of nowhere and chastise you for “being _idle_ ”. The man was brilliant but he sure could be a dick.

***

_Voices shout, the smell of blood is thick in the air. Your hands tremble, gripping the knife tight as the faceless man in front of you slumps to the floor, clutching at his throat…_ You shake yourself, trying to focus on the film. It’s only just started but you’re really not sure what’s happening. It had been a rocky road since the incident that had pushed you down the rabbit hole of Templars and Assassins all those years ago. Mostly you tried to detach yourself from what you did; taking a life was never easy, though at this point it had been so many that they almost blurred together. Through all that, though, you’d always remember the first... Munich, Germany. You had been on holiday with your parents, it was supposed to be nice. It had been, up until that point... Your parents had decided to skip the taxi and walk back to the hotel from the restaurant that night, it was your last night there and they wanted to _appreciate the scenery_ or some such nonsense. How were they to know that the mugger would pull them and you into an alleyway, stabbing them both in the stomach with a kitchen knife when they refused to hand over their money, then turn on you? How was the mugger to know that you’d manage to take the knife from his hands and slice his throat with it? How were you to know that the “mugger” you’d killed just happened to be a Templar agent in disguise and that killing him would make you not only a target to the German authorities, but also to the Templars? You found out later that your parents were targets for the Templars already, they both fed intelligence to the Assassin’s and weren’t very quiet about it. Perhaps it had only been a matter of time until they were found… Needless to say, however, at the time it wasn’t a series of events that you ever could have predicted. And the rest, as they say, is history. The Assassin’s found you, trained you up, and you had been on the run, killing Templars and hacking into things ever since. Not the nicest bedtime story, but a story it definitely was… You shake your head again. Being forced to remember that stuff when you were asleep was one thing, but purposefully dwelling on it in your waking hours too? You probably _were_ insane.

***

You must have drifted off, because you're suddenly aware that the scene around you has changed. The weight of the laptop is gone and your legs and back ache from being sat there for what was probably hours. You shift in your seat to stretch, flinching as even a small movement makes your sore back scream in protest. Or you try to, at least, but you don’t get very far when you finally notice the arm wrapped around your shoulders, hand gripping loosely at your upper arm. You freeze. Memories of the night before hitting you like a train; the nightmares, waking to find _Shaun_ of all people facing you, him settling down next to you bringing the welcome distraction of a film and some company. You open your eyes, sneaking a peek at his sleeping face. He looked peaceful yet wary as he sat there against the wall, eyes clenched shut and glasses askew on his face where he had clearly forgotten to take them off before he fell asleep. A shadow of a beard was ghosted across his chin and you feel your brow furrow, almost resisting the urge to run your hand across his jaw. It made him look… odd. _Older_. Much older than the clean-shaven man you had met all those weeks ago in Italy. Though you must admit it was almost attractive... You stop that thought in its tracks. As unconventional as the situation was, this was a _colleague_ you were thinking about. Not just a colleague, Shaun. _Shaun_... As if responding to your thoughts, the man next to you begins to stir and you look away, panicked. He sighs a tired sigh, sliding his arm from its position around you so he can stretch and push his glasses back up his nose. You cough awkwardly, looking over to him. "Morning..." You try, voice catching and sounding quieter than you meant it to. Well that didn’t sound suspicious at all.

"Is it? There's really no way of telling down here. Perhaps we should get some clocks, I’d imagine a nice grandfather clock would look rather at home in here." He responds, tired voice the only difference to the sharp comment you’ve come to expect from him. You shoot him a look and he smirks easily, stretching again and you are suddenly reminded of one of those awful romantic movies as his shirt rides up as he raises his arms above his head, revealing a small patch of skin above the band of his pyjama trousers. You look away, cheeks flushed. You were good at your job, excellent with computers, but men? That was a territory you had no experience in whatsoever.

"About... last night." You begin to say, but you hesitate. _What about last night?_ You think

"Don't mention it. Would have done the same for anyone. Well, maybe not _anyone_." He replies, smirking again as your train of thought comes to a grinding halt. You nod and stand up, heading over to the makeshift kitchen in the middle of the sleeping area and setting about making some coffee. You feel a hand on your shoulder out of nowhere and you almost jump, turning to face him. “If you ever want to… to _talk_ about… anything…” he mumbles, brows furrowing and eyes laced with uncertainty.

You manage to choke out a small “Yeah… thanks.” Before your voice box decides that’s the moment it’s going on strike. You stand there like that for probably too long, you notice his eyes flit across your face a few times as his hand rests on your shoulder. You think he is about to say something when you hear someone calling to you. You both jump out of your skin, leaping a solid three meters away from each other. The voice, you now realise, belongs to Rebecca, shouting to you as they stumble over clutching a couple of boxes of what you assume is food and supplies.

“Hey!” She shouts, dumping the box on the ground and rushing forward to give you a quick hug. “Shaun said you got the files, I can start diagnosing Baby soon and we’ll be back in business, good job!”

“Yeah, nice one!” Adds the ever loquacious Desmond.You shoot them a probably awkward smile and the four of you fall into an awkward silence. You feel Shaun’s eyes on you, see the look Desmond and Rebecca keep sharing and suddenly you can’t breathe. The room feels smaller than it is and the floor suddenly feels like that of a ship.

“Air,” you think, “I need air”…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm sorry if this was really sappy, I could have the characters dance around each other for probably fifty chapters but I kinda want to get the plot moving (plus I'm planning some kinda angsty chapters so maybe I should be nice to Shaun and our dear reader... while they have a moment to enjoy it hehe) But yeah, apologies if it seems forced or something XD. I hope you liked this chapter though and that it didn't take too long to be finished... I promise you all that I'm not going to abandon this story, no matter how long it takes me to upload a chapter. Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments and things, it means a lot to me that people are enjoying this... cookies for everyone, ily! <3


	4. Chapter Four

You can see your breath in front of your face way before you reach the exit of the cave and you begin to regret your decision. Once you make it outside and catch your breath, however, you realise you made a good choice; ‘ _fresh air is exactly what I needed’._ There isn’t much snow, but everything is covered in a layer of frost, every step you take crunching in a satisfying way. You amble over to where the van was parked and shove your hands in your pockets, leaning against the front and staring out at the scenery. What happened before was… strange. You never liked to think of yourself as the kind of person who didn’t ‘allow’ themselves to get close to others, that frame of mind was reserved for the stoic main character in some dark, gritty novel. You had never really liked the company of others and after what happened to your parents, you were especially mistrusting of strangers, but that’s not to say you didn’t _like_ other people. It was just… Shaun. That stupid, sarcastic, _beautiful…_ ass. You had no way of knowing whether your feelings were reciprocated or not. Though, would you want them to be? You couldn’t get your mind around it, it was a problem. A problem, it seems, the universe was intent on making worse, because typically that’s when you hear footsteps behind you crunching on the frozen grass and your mind assumes it can be only one person. Until…

“Hey!” called a female voice, and you breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps the universe didn’t hate you _that_ much.

“Hi, Becca,” you respond as she finally appears in your view, taking a spot leaning against the van with you. “Draw the short straw, huh?”

“Don’t be stupid!” she laughs, “I actually volunteered to come out here.” You smile at that. Nobody on the animus team enjoys the cold really, and while Shaun is the only one who complains openly about it, you know they all secretly miss the warm of Italy. “Listen,” she starts, voice suddenly much less jovial. “Shaun told us what happened last night… Another nightmare?” You nod. “You wanna talk about it…?”

“There’s nothing new to say, really. Same as always…” She hums, looking to her feet for a moment.

“He told us about the other bit too… you and him, all cozy together… Well, not in so many words, but his bed was empty and yours had two sleeping bags on it - and he was acting all shifty. More than usual, I mean…” she trails off, but you can see the grin on her face out of the corner of your eye. You turn to face her, trying to be cross, but soon enough you’re grinning too.

“It’s not…” You begin to protest, but she starts laughing again and you can’t get anything else out.

“It’s cool, it’s cool. Hey, I’m happy for you both!” You blanch at that, trying to remain serious for just a second to correct her.

“Seriously, Becca, that was _it,_ he put a film on as a distraction and we fell asleep, nothing happened and… and nothing will. We’re colleagues, as William would probably remind us.” She nods, taking the hint but you’re not sure she bought it. Either way, she doesn’t say anything about it again as you both head back down to the cave, ready to get back to work.

*

“It’s such a long way down…” You mutter to yourself, sat on a ledge at the top of the stone stairs, facing the giant force-field with your legs dangling over the edge and your hands wrapped around a hot mug of soup. Well, it was a mostly hot mug of… something that was supposed to resemble soup, but it tasted okay. You look up, eyes being immediately drawn to the huge blue door you were all working so hard to get through. You and Shaun had spent many an hour examining it, theorising about it but neither of you could figure out exactly how it was doing what it was doing and the timer was steadily counting down. Counting down to the end of the world… that sure did put a dampener on everyone’s spirits. You turn and see Shaun approaching you, heading up the stairs with what looked like a bottle of water and a yoghurt in his hand. He saunters up to you, hauling himself up onto the ledge so he can take a seat next to you, crossing his legs. “Nutritious.” You quip, nodding to his yoghurt.

“Oh shut up, miss ‘hot water and flavour powder make a meal’.” He retorts and you snort. “Aren’t you a bit, you know… _nervous_ dangling over the edge like that?” He enquires, sounding mildly panicked.

“Not really.” You shrug, looking down and kicking your legs for emphasis. That wasn’t entirely true, all it would take is one misstep and you’d be tumbling into that seemingly infinite chasm and most likely meeting a very sticky end and you knew that wasn’t how you wanted to go, but still. You turn and look over at him when he doesn’t respond and his face is one of extreme incredulity. You roll your eyes and put your soup down, carefully sliding yourself back so your back is against the wall and your legs are crossed under you. “Better?”

“Much.”

“Ass.” You elbow him right as he goes to take a sip of water, subsequently spilling it all down his shirt.

“ _Child._ ” You laugh and finish your soup in one gulp. Grimacing, you set the mug down next to you and rest your head on the wall. “Do you think…” he starts, and you turn your head to look at him “That there’s any way we’re getting out of this alive?” Wow. You had not been expecting that. It was a fair question, and one you’d been pondering yourself, but such a naïve sounding question coming from _Shaun_ …

“I don’t know.” You respond, voice sounding smaller than you meant it to. You look away, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in your throat.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…” He muttered, but you stop him.

“No it’s fine, I just… don’t know. I want to have faith in Desmond that he’ll find the key in time, but…” He nods slowly, eyes glassy. You look away from him, once again feeling the gravity of the situation weighing down on your shoulders. Why were you here? You could easily be in some bar in downtown _anywhere_ drinking your troubles away without a care in the world, but no. Instead, you had to be here, in a cave, working frantically to try and save this stupid world. This stupid world full of stupid innocent people living in _stupid blissful ignorance._ Your eyes are once again drawn to the force field, the gateway to hopefully the secret to saving humanity, when you feel Shaun’s hand resting on top of yours. You turn to him and his eyes are resolute. He gives your hand a reassuring squeeze.

“We **will** get out of here alive, do you hear me?” He asks, probably somewhat rhetorically but you give him a wordless nod. “And when we do,” he takes a breath, voice shaky “I’m taking you for some real food, no more of this powdered ‘just add water’ malarkey you call a meal.”

“It’s a date.” You conclude, wrapping your fingers around his and squeezing his hand back. It’s not a dramatic declaration of your feelings, but it’s enough. It’s not until after you’ve agreed to his proposal that you quite realise what he said and the panic must have shown on your face.

“What? What’s wrong?” He questions, expression betraying what can only be construed as worry.

“Nothing, I just… Shaun, what we do is dangerous. What… what _I_ do is dangerous.”

“Really? You know, I had no idea. Up until now I thought this line of work was equivalent to restocking toilet rolls and boxes of pop tarts at 2 in the morning. Potential for papercuts and pulled muscles, and that’s if you’re _really_ trying.” He responds, and you glare at him.

“You know what I mean. I…” You pause to gather your words, looking down at where your hands are still resting together “I _kill_ high profile Templars on a pretty regular basis. I’m working with this cell for now, yes, but I could get reassigned in a second if the opportune moment arises, and what if something happens? I can’t…”

“Can’t afford to slip up because of something as silly as a relationship?” He concludes, once again serious. You nod.

“I want this to happen, Shaun, I just… the world could end and it would be our fault.”

“Well if it does… maybe it will be down to us to _repopulate_ it.” He deadpans, and you laugh. Hard. It doesn’t take long before you’re both laughing like idiots, and you almost don’t want it to end. But then, like everything, it does. “Look… joking aside, it’s clear we both want something to happen, but you’re right. The job comes first, we’re on a time limit and… I can wait.”

“Me too.” You mutter, voice soft. He lifts his hand to your cheek and strokes it for a moment. You close your eyes, smiling contentedly. Okay, maybe that was a lie. You open your eyes again and look at him, you’re both leaning in closer, when…

“Guys! Lunch break over, get down here, you gotta see this!” Rebecca’s voice echoes around the cave and you jolt apart. Something’s… _wrong_.

“Duty calls…” He mutters and you smirk, poorly masking the disappointment you’re feeling. But this was what you were talking about. This wasn’t just some 9-5 job, this was, for all intents and purposes, a war. The end of the world, and it would always come first. The two of you descend the stairs quickly, footsteps echoing dully as you all but sprint over to the animus, empty soup mug dangling from your hand as you approach Rebecca’s computer.

“They’ve got William, Abstergo have William!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Hi! Yay, plot stuff ;) getting seriously close to the romance... I feel so evil XD hehe  
> Sorry it took me so long to get this one out, I've actually been writing the whole thing random paragraph by random paragraph (probably not the most organised way to write a story but there we go XD). I hope you enjoyed this one though! Sorry for the (kinda) cliffhanger at the end there ;) I do have most of the next chapter written though so it shouldn't take me as long to get the next one out! Anyway, I'm gonna go to sleep now bc as usual I chose finishing this over sleeping... I can adult I promise XD. As always, thanks for the kudos and comments and stuff, I'm so glad you're enjoying it... ily all!! <3


	5. Chapter Five

Rebecca was frantically typing, trying to pull Desmond out of the Animus as fast as possible. The confusion was evident on his face as he got his bearings, about to question exactly _why_ he had been so suddenly woken when she blurted out “Somethings happened, Desmond. Abstergo has your dad.” His eyes widen and he jumps to his feet.

“Where.”

“Italy.” Shaun offered, “Same place they were holding you.” Desmond was up and walking away before he’d even finished talking.

“What are you three waiting for? Let’s go.”

“There’s… more.” You say, sharing a glance with Rebecca. She pulls up the video on the screen and hits play as the four of you gather around the computer.

“Hello again, Mister Miles.” Greets Warren Vidic, pacing behind the older Mister Miles like a predator circling his prey. “I hope this message finds you well – or as well as it can, all things considered… It appears we now each have something the other desires. I propose a trade." You snort incredulously, earning you a glare. “Bring me the apple and I’ll return your father to you no worse for the wear. Should you refuse, he will still be returned, albeit much worse for the wear. I assume you’d like to avoid an unpleasant outcome.” The video cuts out and you all release the breath you’d been holding. You feel the energy between the four of you change in that moment, especially for Desmond. He was on a mission.

“So…” Shaun starts, scratching the back of his head. It looks like he’s going to say something smart but Rebecca cuts him off.

“We need to get moving. I’ll get us a flight to Italy, you three pack up what you need and then we can get on the road.” You nod and scatter.  Shaun heads over to his work station to grab some things, Rebecca stays at her computer, and you and Desmond both make your way over to the living area. You walk to your crate of stuff and pull out a long case, removing your hidden blades from their home. You strap them onto your wrists and give them an experimental flick as you throw a couple of things into a backpack. That’s when you feel the hair on your neck stand up, and you realise Desmond had been watching you. You turn to glance at him. ‘I know that look…’

“I know what you’re going to say, but I’m coming with you. You’ll need backup.” You state, not giving him room to argue. To this team you probably seemed like just another backstage computer geek, serving the Assassins from behind a screen never having seen any real combat outside of video footage, but in reality you were one of the best trained agents in the field and you knew that, it was actually the reason you had been assigned to this team, even if they didn’t yet. And you didn’t blame them for thinking otherwise, either. Ever since you arrived you had sat at your workstation and typed away on your laptop for hours on end. Sure, you had gone on the supply runs and things but other than that you’d been benched for months, even when finding the power sources. You knew you could have helped Desmond, but with Williams ever present eye resting on you with the urge to keep the extent of your training on a strict need to know basis, you thought it best to remain seated. Luckily, the others didn’t suspect anything from what you could tell, and William hadn’t said anything so that had to count for something. For you though, it was strange to be behind the scenes, on the giving end of mission advice rather than the receiving, but that was what you had to do so you did it.

Desmond looks you in the eye and for a split second it feels like he's reading into you, trying to assess whether or not to argue the case, but then he looks away and nods his head. Glad to have come to some kind of understanding, the pair of you head back over to where Rebecca and Shaun were waiting. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that Shaun’s eyes flickered down to your wrists as you tug your sleeves over the blades, as if not expecting to see them there, but you can’t be sure. It only takes another moment for you all to be packed up, ready, and heading to the van, clutching the freshly printed paperwork for a direct and private (so as to avoid unwanted attention) flight to Italy under your fake names.

*

The drive to the airport seemed to take forever, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours. You sit in the back, head in your hands and foot tapping rapidly against the floor. It must have been annoying, and you knew it, but nobody said anything; it seemed like everybody was lost in a world of their own. Eventually, you sit up, twisting your wrist in the bracers. They feel oddly uncomfortable, as if protesting the amount of time they spent in their case. You almost don’t blame them; you had been out of action as long as they had. You always felt a sense of pride putting them on, ever since you were first given them after the bulk of your training was complete. Way back when you were still training under William, and definitely before you started travelling all over the world, killing Templars and their informants. Well, first kill excluded of course. You had asked Mister Miles about your parents many times, and each he refused to tell you the full story. They had worked with, or for, the Assassins; you could gather that much, but after that things became slightly more hazy. Exactly what kind of Intel they had been providing, and more importantly _how_ they had been getting it, was allegedly so classified that even William didn’t have access to it. You had obviously tried to do some digging, though all that had gotten you was a night in interrogation as they tried to determine whether your snooping had been for the Templars. A firm reprimand came after that, and you decided to leave it alone. Of course, there was the possibility you could try again, that had been many years ago, your hacking skills weren’t anywhere near as good then as they were now... No, you had work to do. No time for chasing after answers which would probably leave you with more questions than you had to begin with…

You pull yourself out of the past and sit up, leaning your back against the wall of the van and folding your arms across your stomach.

“Welcome back to the world of the living.” Shaun calls to you from the driver’s seat. It’s then that it dawns on you that they had been conversing in low voices for god knows how long. “I was just telling the others that we're not far away now.” You nod, stretching, not looking forward to the long plane ride ahead of you.

*

The plane Rebecca had managed to acquire for you was a small private jet. You didn’t know who it belonged to, and you didn’t want to, but Rebecca had no problems while showing the paperwork to the pilot. He simply ushered you on-board, before scurrying into the cockpit to join his co-pilot. You slump into one of the cushioned seats, not at all used to flying in such luxury. The jet isn’t exactly large, but compared to being squashed like sardines in a tin next to a bunch of probably angry strangers on a commercial flight, this was definitely something. The four seats are arranged so two are facing each other on either side of the short aisle, with a small square table in the center of each pair. Rebecca slumps down opposite you after stowing her bag in the compartment, giving you a small grin which doesn’t at all conceal her anxiety over the situation, and pulls out her headphones. Once the four of you are belted up, the Pilot starts the engines and you’re soon lifting off the ground. You see Shaun squeeze his eyes shut, hands gripping the arms of his chair for dear life. That brings a smirk to your face. “Nervous flyer, Shaun?” You quip, almost wanting to laugh a bit. He just glares at you before squeezing his eyes shut again.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I be afraid? In fact, why aren’t you? What’s wrong with you, do you know how many things could go wrong in a plane? No, my fear is perfectly rational thank you very much.” He mumbles, brows furrowing. You laugh and decide to leave it at that. Once you’re in the air, however, he calms down and pulls out a book, regaining his composure as if nothing was wrong. That leaves you smirking, too. A fear of flying? Oh how you were going to enjoy teasing him about that...

You pull out your laptop once the Pilot tells you that it’s okay to remove your seat belt, deciding to try and get some work done. Typically though, you find it almost impossible to focus. You think you can feel Shaun’s gaze on you a couple of times, though when you peer over the top of the laptop screen at him, he just appears to be reading. 'Am I imagining it?'

*

You push the laptop closed and slip it back into its bag. It’s been 2 hours of staring at the same three lines of code and it’s abundantly clear you’re not getting anything done. You sigh, tired, and stare out over the fields of clouds. The sun is just beginning to set and the view was never one you would tire of. Despite what you keep trying to tell yourself, you feel the cold hands of nerves begin to claw at you. What if you weren’t good enough? If someone got hurt it would be your fault, your fault for having been practically _lazy_ for months. Any failure would be on your head, and you knew you'd be kidding yourself if you thought William wouldn’t tear you a new one if anything happened… But what if something happened to you? The last thing you needed was to be branded incompetent, especially in the eyes of the team who didn’t yet know what you were capable of. You try and shake away the thoughts, insisting to yourself that you wouldn’t fail. You would get Desmond, William, and yourself out of there unharmed… The blades on your wrists feel too tight, constricting, making your arms feel heavier than they should. You clutch them to your chest. _It will be **fine**_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... hi haha. Sorry it's taken me so long to get this out to you, I've re-written this about five times and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I really want to get moving with the rest of the story so I hope you can forgive me... XD. Speaking of which, if my outlines are correct there's only about 3 or 4 chapters left... I may or may not be planning on making a second in the series however, if anyone is interested in that being a thing, so just... watch this space? ;) lol. As always, thank you so much for reading and leaving comments and kudos, I'm having a shitty time at the minute and I appreciate it more than I can express. <3


	6. Chapter Six

You wake up to Rebecca shaking you by the shoulder. “Hey, come on, time to go…” Your eyes flicker open and you blink a few times, eyes adjusting to the light. As soon as she's sure you're awake, she walks away, pulling her stuff down from the overhead compartment. Desmond and Shaun are nowhere to be seen, so you can only assume they’re waiting off the plane already. You pull yourself out of your seat, rolling your shoulders. Those chairs were comfy at first but not great for hours of sleeping in. You gather your things, and before long you’re following Rebecca out onto the airfield. It’s oddly deserted, but you can see a van parked not too far away. Desmond and Shaun were loading the equipment you took with you into the back of it, but they stop as you approach.

“You’re finally awake then, huh?” Smirks Desmond, walking up to greet you and giving you a playful punch in the arm. “Thought we were gonna have to carry you out to the van, we’ve been waiting here for _hours_.”

“Oh come on, Des, it was only like ten minutes.” Shouts Rebecca from inside the van and you laugh at them both.

“Sorry, guess I needed some sleep.” You walk away from Desmond who was still laughing, and climb into the back of the van.

“We ready to get on the road?” Shaun enquires, looking at each of you.

“Yeah I think that’s everything.” Replies Desmond, to which Shaun nods, sliding into the driver’s seat and ordering Rebecca to do her seatbelt up. He seems tense, you mentally note as you settle yourself atop one of the crates. His knuckles were gripping the steering wheel just a bit too tight, his driving was just a bit too fast… Everyone was nervous though, especially Desmond, though he wouldn’t say that out loud. He was diving head first back into the facility he had worked so hard to escape from with Lucy. Lucy… you almost felt bad for him, as if this would somehow be a reminder of what happened to her.

You sigh, resting your head on the wall of the van behind you.

**

It wasn’t a long drive to where you were staying. It was a fairly cheap hotel, though the building must have had at least ten floors, and it was the only one with space that Rebecca could find on such short notice. The four of you took what you could carry and strode through the front doors. Rebecca went up to the front desk to check you in while the rest of the group loitered by the lifts. You must have looked suspicious, all of that equipment you were carrying, but luckily the lobby was fairly empty.

Finally, after at least ten minutes, she strode back over, shaking her head at you. She picked up her stuff when she reached you, muttering something under her breath with frustration and gesturing at someone to push the button on the elevator. Eventually it dinged open, revealing an incredibly small space.

“We’re never all gonna get up in that thing.” You state, glancing around at the others. It wasn’t like you had brought everything with you, though there were a couple of quite large crates of equipment that you just couldn’t leave behind. “I’m not even sure it could take all that weight…”

“Agreed. Go up in pairs?” Desmond suggests, shifting the weight of the crate he had picked up. You nod in response. He and Rebecca move towards the doors almost simultaneously and you hear Shaun sigh.

“Floor 9, room 415.” Grins Rebecca, handing you a spare key card.

“Oh yeah fine, you guys go on up first, leave us to get assaulted when the Templar agents come bursting through the front doors.” Mumbles Shaun, huffing.

They both laugh in response as the doors slowly slide shut and the counter above the elevator starts to change.

You sigh, dropping your bag to the floor and rubbing your hand across your face, still not entirely awake. You feel Shaun’s eyes on you, so you turn your head to look at him with your eyebrows raised. Sure enough, he had been watching you, something unsaid in his eyes.

“Problem?” You ask, probably sounding curter than you intended.

“Actually, yes.” He sighed, folding his arms across his chest. “I-” His eyes flicker over to the elevator counter, which was already on its way back down, then over to the other people in the lobby, before back to yours. “It can wait.” He stated, dropping his arms. You wait in silence for the next few minutes, watching as the number on the screen slowly dropped to 0. You gather your belongings and step into the lift, pushing the button for floor 9. You lean against the rail as you watch the doors shut, sealing you in the small room.

“Well?” You ask, watching the back of Shaun as he squared his shoulders and turned to face you.

“I don’t like this.”

“Like what?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You know what I mean, you going to… _that place_ with Desmond. I don’t like it.”

“What are you, my mother?” You scoff, almost wanting to smirk. “Shaun, I’ll be fine. You do realise I’m trained exactly for this kind of thing, right?” You see his brows furrow, and it dawns on you that maybe he doesn’t know. None of them know anything about your training, or what you were doing before…

“I… still. I don’t like it. We can’t even afford to lose one agent to Abstergo, and if you both go they’ll have three!”

“Well done, Shaun, you can count.” You deadpan, crossing your arms over your chest. “Look, you can’t stop me from doing this. This is my job, okay? I’ve killed Templars much more heavily guarded than this and lived to tell the tale, and that was with no back up at all, and as you so _kindly_ informed me not a moment ago I’ll have not one but two other agents with me. I. Will. Be. _Fine._ ” You finish your speech and let out a short, angry breath. At some point you had stepped closer to him, so your faces were merely inches apart. He didn’t look even slightly convinced and you were sure he was about to argue back, but luckily the elevator shuddered to a stop before he could say anything, so you gathered your bags once again and stalked away from him down the hall and towards the room.

**

You push the door open with perhaps a little more gusto than necessary, propping it open with a bag to let Shaun in before striding through the room and dropping into one of the seats at a small table by the window. You ignore the look Rebecca gives Desmond, and pull out your laptop.  

The room wasn't huge, but it had enough room for two single beds, a small sofa, and a table with two chairs next to a large, floor to ceiling window. There was also what you assumed to be a bathroom by the door. The size didn't matter though, there probably wasn't a chance you'd be staying there long. Not that you anticipated anything going wrong. Quite the contrary in fact, all being well you'd have Miles Senior and be on your way out of the country again in a matter of hours. Or that was the plan, anyway.

“You okay?” Becca asks tentatively, slowly walking towards you. Desmond went to the door, peering out of it and down the hall.

“I'm fine. Need to get into the security system, I-” You pause as Shaun enters, the three of you look at him as he shuts the door, nodding at you all. You clear your throat, turning back to Rebecca. “I don’t think we should risk leaving footage of us on the hotels cameras.” She nods in agreement, and leaves you to your work.

You boot up the laptop, immediately feeling your heart begin to slow from its pounding. It didn’t matter how much you enjoyed the thrill of combat, working behind a computer was always much more relaxing.

The hotel security wasn’t that great, so it didn’t take you long to bypass their firewall. “Child's play.” You mutter to yourself, smirking. From there, you had access to the entire system. Working your way through to the security cameras, you found the footage and replaced it with loops of old footage from earlier that day when nobody was around. Next, you reached into the crate beside you and retrieved a second monitor, which you hooked up to your laptop and moved the camera screens to that monitor, leaving your laptop clear for you to cover your tracks while still being able to keep an eye on what was happening in the rest of the hotel.

You don’t leave your computer after that, preferring to ignore the others and stare blankly at the cameras until you feel a hand on your shoulder. You turn to face Desmond, who was looking at you with a grim determination on his face. “It’s time.”

You nod in response, standing up and stretching. You change into your combat boots, shrug your jacket over your shoulders, and strap on your holster for your pistol. The four of you gather your computers and return to the van, preparing for the short drive over to Abstergo. _It will be **fine**_...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk why I feel like this chapter is super short? Anyway, hi! Still here, still (slowly) updating, still madly in love with the wonderful Shaun Hastings... I hope you're enjoying this, I actually have the next chapter written already (shit is about to go DOWN ;D ) so that should be updated pretty soon and after that only a few more chapters to go! I'm definitely planning a second in the series though so don't you worry ;). As always, thanks for reading and extra super thanks for comments and kudos, I may not be the best writer out there but I really appreciate them more than I can express so thanks hehe :3 Have a great day!! <3


	7. Chapter Seven

_I always knew it would come to this - just not so soon. I wonder if Abstergo even knows what's about to happen… and has this been a part of their plan all along? Maybe they want the world to end to see it all burned away. Then they’d have their new world - ripe for the reshaping... we talked about looking for another power source. Leaving him there. That's probably what he'd want, for us to finish the mission. But I can't. It's hard enough taking a life, but letting one be taken, knowing there was something I could do about it? Not a chance. Might be I'm risking my life... all our lives to save an asshole. But what else am I supposed to do? That asshole is my dad._

_~Desmond Miles_

 

“Right, are you both clear on what you’re doing?” Shaun’s nervous voice fills your ear. “Desmond, focus on finding your dad, and-”

“And that leaves me to deploy the ‘bomb’. Guys, we got this.” You reply, giving Desmond a small nod as you step straight through Abstergo’s front doors and into the belly of the beast.

The 'bomb' hadn't taken you long to create; in fact it was almost Childs play, and laughable that you would be taking it to Abstergo of all places. It was somewhat of a last minute decision, actually. It had occurred to you right as you were leaving that this was probably the only time you would have direct access to Abstergo's servers, so why not wreak a little havoc? With the lack of time to comw up with anything more creative, you had called your little creation as a 'bomb' simply because that's what it was, in a digital sense; it would 'explode', wiping away a fair size chunk of data stored in their servers, hopefully something useful and not just the employee files or something, and transfer that information to the USB you were carrying in your pocket. That was the plan, anyway. There hadn't exactly been much time in which to test it... You had coded it in ten minutes sat in the van outside the hotel. Yeah, this was a great idea, right?

“They’re probably holding your father on the upper levels. Same place they held you, Des.” Rebecca informs you both over the earpieces. You nod again to Desmond and he starts walking casually away from you, leaving you eyeing the security with increasing fear as you feign reading a leaflet. “There’s an elevator bank down the hall, try not to let them see you.”

“They know we’re here, Rebecca, there’s no way they don’t.” Replied Desmond, clearly trying his best to act casual.

“This,” squeaked Shaun, “This was a bad idea.” You glance around carefully before replying, making sure nobody was watching your face.

“Yeah no shit, but I didn’t see you coming up with anything better.” You return the leaflet to the stand and start to slowly make your way to Desmond, waiting just before the entrance to the corridor which would lead you to the elevators. You think you might make it, until two huge guards approach you, stopping your progress.

“Hand over your weapons and come with me, both of you.” Grunts one of the guards. You’re about to say something sarcastic when Desmond beats you to the mark.

“We can show ourselves in, but thanks for the offer.”

“I’d rather this didn’t turn ugly, Mister Miles. And who do we have here? A friend of yours? You don’t keep the best company, do you Mister Miles. Still, lovely to meet you. Such a shame it has to be under such _hostile_ circumstances.” Warren Vidic’s voice is projected out of unseen speakers. You eye the guards in front of you, you can see another two lurking off to your right and you watch them standing there, fidgeting with their weapons and waiting for the cue to attack. You’re vaguely aware of Desmond making a return comment to Vidic, but all you hear is a booming “Subdue the subject, please. You may kill the girl.” That’s when the action starts. You and Desmond fall into place easily next to each other. Though his _unorthodox_ training method is obvious next to your more classical one, he is still a good fighter. Three more guards join the fray from somewhere on your right, and you suddenly fear you’ll become overwhelmed. You and Desmond make a good pair, though. You take down the rest of the guards with relative ease and sprint to the elevator.

“Fourth floor.” Rebecca informs you. Desmond reaches over and jams the button in with his finger. You can feel a bruise beginning to swell on your face. The only downside to facing opponents larger than you; you could take them down, but the bigger they were the more hits they could get in before that happened. Stupid physics… or, whatever. You roll your shoulders, adrenaline pumping through your veins. _Oh, how I’ve **missed** this._

The lift jolts to a stop and you prepare yourself to move again when you hear a smug sounding Vidic address you both again through a speaker. “Well, I see you’ve learned absolutely nothing since you left us. Walking into an elevator in the middle of a hostile environment? Really?” You and Desmond curse simultaneously.

“Where is my father?!” He shouts, and you can tell he’s becoming frustrated.

Vidic laughs a patronising laugh “You’ll see him soon enough. Now be a good boy and wait for security to fetch you.” You look at Desmond, watch his eyes as he begins to look frantically for a way out.

“You’re gonna have to climb the rest of the way.” Rebecca’s voice is in your ear again. You both look up and notice an escape hatch in the roof of the lift.

“You go, I’ll wait here - try and buy you some time to find William. Plus, this looks like my stop anyway.” You say, pushing up your sleeves to better reveal the wrist blades underneath. “Go!” you urge when he does not move. He looks like he wants to stop you, but instead he nods and pushes open the hatch with a clatter, hoisting himself through it and closing it again behind him. You turn back around just in time to see the glass doors slide open, a group of men waiting on the other side. “Here we go again…” You mutter, bringing your arms up as one of them takes the first swing.

**

You run out of the lift, aiming to catch them by surprise. With a flick of your wrist, you plunge the blade into the stomach of the man closest to you. You pull out as he clutches his stomach in pain, raising your other arm and slicing his throat open. You cringe as you feel some of his blood hit your face. Using his body as momentum, you push yourself towards the next man before he has even hit the floor.

The second gets a good few hits in, almost winding you at one point, but eventually you slip past his guard and jab your blade up through the bottom of his jaw, twisting it before retracting the blade. You turn then to face the third, who was clearly having second thoughts about his current line of employment. He raises his hands in surrender and you smirk, clicking your blade away.

“Which way to the server room?” You ask, taking a step towards him menacingly and letting your hand drift towards the gun strapped to your thigh.

“Down this hall, l-left and… and it’s the second room on your right! Oh god, please don’t k-k-kill me.” You hear panic in his voice as you bend down to pick up his discarded baton, turning it over in your hands as if inspecting it.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” You deadpan, catching him by surprise and hitting him over the head with the baton. He tumbles to the ground, probably only unconscious but definitely out for the count.

You follow his directions, glancing behind you every so often but you manage to get to the door undisturbed. It’s unlocked when you reach it which is immediately worrying, but you press on anyway. In your earpiece you hear Rebecca’s voice once again.

“Your dad could be anywhere Desmond I’m sorry but I just don’t know where he is.”

“That’s okay. I do.” He replies cryptically. You shake your head, but ignore their exchange and continue with your task.

You locate the server you need fairly quickly. You pull a small USB stick out of your pocket and plug it into the drive. It would take roughly a minute to complete its process, so you crouch down behind one of the servers and wait.

You don’t even reach 30 seconds before you hear the hiss of the door once again sliding open, and the sounds of at _least_ five agents making their way in. They were even trying their best to be quiet... _Bless their hearts_.

You close your eyes to steady your breathing. You hear them getting closer, splitting off to surround you, as if they knew exactly where you were hiding. You slide yourself slowly to your feet, sneaking a glance around the edge of your cover. You hear someone say something into your ear again, but you try your best to ignore it, not wanting the distraction. Then, you move.

You dart out from around the corner, surprising the approaching agent and slicing your blade over his neck. He sinks to the floor, clutching at his throat as it bleeds openly, but you don’t have time to dwell as two more approach. You dart back behind another server and run silently to the end of the aisle. Another man is walking towards where your USB is plugged in, soft blue light flashing steadily away, a stark contrast to the _oh so **ominous**_ red LED lights running around the rest of the room.

You dart behind him, catching your blade over his throat just before he reaches your USB. You glance over at it right as the soft blue light flickers to a green one, letting you know that the process is complete. You just manage to pull it out of the drive and slip it back away as the two men from before round the corner, letting out a cry of shock seeing you there. You curse again, turning to run back the way you came from. You don’t get far though, as you run smack into someone’s chest.

Harsh hands spin you around and wrap around you. You kick your legs out, try and swing them back at the man holding you but it’s no use. He has your arms pinned so you can’t use your blades without hurting yourself, and he’s big enough that you can’t quite kick him enough to make him drop you. One of the other two agents stalk up to you.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” He snarls, smirking with a sort of self-assured cockiness that made you almost completely sure he was some sort of asshole with power. A Captain perhaps? He edges closer as you breathe heavily, waiting for him to get close enough and… yes! You spit at him with as much force as you can muster and it hits him on his cheek. He looks shocked for a moment as he wipes it away with a gloved hand, but then his eyes become angry. You barely have time to register him bringing his fist back until it punches you square in the face. It doesn’t quite knock you out, but it makes the world go blurry for a moment. Yikes.

He looks you up and down in an almost predatory way as you stand there, supported by hulking man behind you. His eyes catch the pistol in your holster and he grins once again. “Oh we can’t let you keep that, can we?” He steps in closer, letting his face drift to inches from your own as he roughly yanks it from its holster, almost daring you to spit at him again. With your gun in his hands, that suddenly doesn’t feel like such a good idea.

Eventually, you hear Rebecca calling to you in the earpiece, worried. They knew you must have found the servers by now and should have let them know of your progress. Damn. Before you can do anything however, the guard who punched you reaches up and yanks it from your ear, dropping it on the floor and crushing the small piece of tech with his boot. Next thing you know, you’re being dragged out of the room and back into the elevator. The man who spoke pushes in a button and you’re flying up to a new floor. Great.

“Hey, you gonna tell me where you’re taking me?” You spit blood onto the ground, once again struggling against the arms of your captor. You could feel your lip swelling.

“Not just yet, girl.” He responds, turning to face you. “You need to be taught some manors…” You taste blood in your mouth again and grimace.

The lift shudders to a halt and you’re pulled out of it. The three of you walk some more corridors, passing guards as you go, and towards a set of double doors, which the man leading knocks on. You assume he was given an affirmative, as he opens the door to a room full of guards, tied to a chair in front of the desk is William whose eyebrows furrow as he makes eye contact with you. Standing behind the desk…

“Vidic.”

“Ah. Mister Miles’ fetching companion. How _nice_ to make your acquaintance.” He commands, honeyed words sounding even more poisonous in person.

“I wish I could say the same.” You retort, and the man who led you in speaks for the first time.

“I’m sorry, Sir – she is… spirited.”

“Yes, I see that… Someone tie her up and sit her next to our guest here.” Another man walks up to you, shoving his gun back in its holster as he goes. Everything seems to slow down as your training kicks in. You can see that, even if William wasn’t tied up, you would still be very drastically outnumbered. Still… your arms will have to be released from their position crossed against your chest before they’re cuffed together, which might give you enough time to grab the guards gun from its holster and do… something. Your eyes flicker over to William. He’s staring at you intently, you’re not sure what he’s trying to say, whether he’s urging you to remain compliant or to take the shot, but the moment is rapidly passing… You go for it. As soon as the man behind you loosens his grip on you, you squirm free, hand snatching the gun from the unsuspecting guards holster and you reel back, making sure there is nobody behind you and pointing the gun between the guards in front of you, before finally at Vidic.

“Well done.” He chortled, clapping his hands in a slow, patronising way. “Now what? My dear, as you can clearly see…” You don’t let him finish. You swing the gun around, shooting two guards in the head before running at the third who started reaching for his own. The guards all around you are beginning to encircle you and Vidic is sat back, watching the situation unfold. Until he clears his throat. “You came here for Desmond’s father, did you not? Let’s not disappoint him by making a silly mistake.” He declares, and you see him stood next to yet another guard whose gun is held firmly against the back of Williams head. _How are there so many of these goons? Fuck._ You look around you, trying to calculate a way out of this mess when he delivers the final nail in the coffin – he begins counting down from five. You grimace, cursing, and drop the gun. You raise your hands and hold them behind your head.

“There we go, you see? That wasn’t so hard now was it. Men?” You hear the noise of one of their awful batons being clicked into place and everything goes black.

**

When you wake, you’re vaguely aware of the ground underneath you moving. You groan, head throbbing, and try and push yourself up from your position sprawled on the floor. Whatever floor that was…

“Woah, slow down!” Someone shouts and you flinch away from the noise, groaning again.

“What… where…” You slur. You pry your eyes open and take in your surroundings. You’re on the floor of the rental van, which appears to be moving, Desmond is sat closest to you. You don’t see anything else, though, as whoever is driving the van swings it around a corner and your stomach lurches uncomfortably. You cringe, squeezing your eyes shut again.

“Hey, don’t go back to sleep on us!” Desmond commands, placing a hand on your shoulder. You open your eyes again and stick your tongue out in response. He sighs. “We’re on our way to the ER. Just… try and stay with us. Unless you’re feeling okay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, son, I saw how hard that guard hit her, she’s lucky conscious.” Chimes in William from… somewhere. You lift your head up and see that he’s sat in the spot just behind Shaun. Your stomach lurches again and you feel yourself grow cold.

“We… hospital?” You ask, brow furrowing as you try _really_ hard to figure out where the rest of that sentence went…

“Yikes.” whispers Desmond, and you have to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! I hope you enjoyed That!! I actually have no idea what to put here, just... stay tuned for more I guess? Only a few chapters until the epic conclusion... Also I hope that quote at the start wasn't too weird/out of place, it just felt right to include it...  
> Thanks for reading as always, and for taking the time to comment or leave kudos(!!!) Ty for your patience, ily <3


	8. Chapter Eight

The rest of the short drive to the hospital was fairly uneventful, though you still couldn’t manage to form a coherent sentence. The van jolts to a stop and the engine is barely off before Shaun is diving out of the driver’s seat and rushing around to the back to pull the doors open. They help you to your feet, watching carefully as you sway gently on the spot. “I can’t...” You mutter, trying to take a step forward and failing, dropping to your knees. The whole world was spinning and you clench your eyes shut until you feel a strong arm snake around you, supporting your back and acting as an anchor. Someone else is at your other side supporting you and together, they pull you up and you make your way slowly into the ER.

*

Shaun and Desmond lowered you down onto the nearest chair. Scowling, Shaun surveyed the room. Despite being fairly late in the day, the place was just busy enough to immediately get on his nerves. He shook his head, taking a seat next to you as William went to check you in and Desmond went back out to the van. “How you feeling?” He asks tentatively, watching as even that simple question took a few moments to register.

“Like I got… hit in the head. There’s also… two of you… like you could get any more annoying.” You manage to slur out and he laughs a little, earning the pair of you some odd looks. “We got… Mister Miles though.” You say, to which he nods.

“Hey, no sleeping!” He exclaims, watching your eyelids droop. “I know it’s tempting but-”

“Mrs Smith?” A woman asks with a thick accent. William is staring at the two of you with wide eyes over her shoulder, a look which Shaun acknowledges with an almost imperceptible nod.

“Yes, this is she.” He confirms, placing his hand on yours to get your attention. He watches the confusion wash over you, but eventually you just nod and he feels the relief wash over him. The nurse nods, smiling as she brings over a wheelchair for you to sit in.

“Are you the husband?” She enquires, still smiling politely at Shaun.

“Uh…” He stutters, caught off guard. He glances over her shoulder and William gives him another purposeful nod. _Curse that man._ “Yes! Yes, I am.” He exclaims with a small, awkward, laugh, jumping to his feet. “Honey?” He asks you, looking at you pointedly. “We need to get you in the chair, okay?” Once again, he watches as it takes a few moments to register but you nod again, brows furrowing, but you clearly catch on to the act. He slides his arm under yours again, helping you across the short distance to the chair. Once in it, the nurse instructs him to follow her, which he does. He wheels you to a small room where he loiters awkwardly as the nurse triages you. Her questions are clearly irritating you, but he doesn’t hear her mention anything about how your head got hurt, for which he is incredibly relieved.

_Those lights are incredibly bright_ , he found himself thinking as he watched you idly. _It’s not very considerate for people with head injuries, why don’t they put some death metal on in the background, I imagine that would be **just** as soothing._

“Okay, it seems she has a concussion.” The nurse says, standing and addressing Shaun now, jolting out of his mental rant. “We’ll need to do a scan to check for any internal damage, and I think she should stay in for at least 24 hours just to be safe. If you just wait right here, I’ll go and fetch her something for the pain.” She pushes past Shaun and out of the door, leaving you both alone in the room. He doesn’t even need to look at you before you say exactly what he was thinking.

“We can’t stay here… not for that long.” You mutter, scrunching your eyes shut. “I’m fine, really…”

“No, you’re really not.” Shaun laughs a little more coldly than he meant, edging forward and sinking down into the seat the nurse had vacated. “But I agree, we can’t stay here. Let’s just… see how bad it is, get the scan over and done with and then we can make a run for it.” The door clicks back open and you both look over at the Nurse. She hands you two small pills and a cup of water which you take without question.

“Okay,” She says, once she was satisfied you had swallowed the pills and weren’t going to throw them back up again. “Let’s get you to that scan.”

**

It took over an hour to get through the scan and wait for the results, and you were feeling a hell of a lot worse for it all. The world hadn’t stopped spinning and, much to your embarrassment and Shaun’s disgusted horror, you had thrown up all over the floor twice. You hadn’t seen William since he left you at the waiting room, either, which both you and Shaun found quite odd. Surely he would have wanted to keep an eye on you both? You didn’t know, though, nor did you want to dwell on the thoughts; thinking _hurt_.

The nurse pushing the wheelchair deposited you in a small room with three other beds, helping you onto one of them and closing the curtain around one of them.

“Okay, if you’ll just wait here Miss, the doctor will be around with your results soon.” You nod a response and the nurse slips away through the curtain.

Once she has gone, Shaun sinks into the nearest chair and leans back, huffing and rubbing a hand over his brow. “More waiting…”

“I know… are you sure we shouldn’t just… go?” You mutter, trying _really_ hard to ignore just how comfortable the bed was compared to the camp beds you have been sleeping on for months.

“What, after all this being herded around we’ve just done? We may as well see what’s up.” You nod in response. “I am getting a bit worried that we haven’t heard from the others since getting whisked away, though.” He adds, taking out his phone.

“No phones allowed in here, Hastings.” You mutter, and he laughs a little.

_At least she’s still herself_ … “Yes mother, I know.” He replies with a snort, shoving the phone back in his pocket. “Besides, there’s no signal in here anyway.”

His voice sounded dismissive, but when you turn to look at him it’s clear he is more worried than he is letting on. “You could always just go outside and see if everything is okay.” You suggest, focussing all your energy on not flinching away from the lights.

“What, and leave you alone in the middle of a hospital when we’re on the run? Don’t be ridiculous. If you ended up dead after all this then I got vomit on my shoes for nothing.”

“Hey, I didn’t get it on your shoes… it missed by at least an-“ You get cut off by the curtain being parted and a tall, wiry man stepping through, holding a clipboard and looking stressed.

“Mrs. Smith?” He asks, to which both you and Shaun nod. “Ah. I’ve come to deliver your results. It doesn’t appear you have any internal damage other than a rather severe concussion. You may go home if you wish, please rest…” You try really hard to concentrate on the rest of what he says, but it all turns to white noise. _Home… there’s something I haven’t thought on in a while_. Shauns hand on yours jolts you out of whatever thought was going to come next, however, as it appears the doctor has stopped talking and is waiting for a response.

“Did you hear that, sweetie? **We can go home.** ” He intones, and all you can do is nod and smile.

_My hand is burning, why is my hand burning?_

The doctor turns and leaves the room, trusting you to make your own way out, but you remain sat there for a moment, staring at his hand on yours.

“So we, uh… we can go.” You mutter, and he snatches his hand back as if shocked.

“Yes! Yes, let’s get out of here.” He clears his throat, and helps you stand. “Are you okay walking?”

“I should be…” You say, and together you wind your way back through the hospital. You stumble a few times, and somewhere on the way Shaun ends up slipping his arm around you to steady you. Neither of you say anything, just continue on in silence until you reach the car park where the van was waiting.

“There you are!” Rebecca bounces out of the van to greet you, oddly happy considering the circumstances. “We were about to come in after you!”

“Is everything okay?” Desmond looks you in the eye, and for some reason you feel like he is asking about more than just the head wound.

“They said it’s just a severe concussion. She needs rest.” Shaun responds, and you feel him turn to look at you as he says it.

“Can we… go?” You say, looking between the faces of the other Assassins stood in front of you, now wanting nothing more than sleep, and trying really hard to ignore the way Shaun’s hand still firmly on your waist made your heart flutter like it was going to take flight.

**

You fell asleep almost instantly when the group arrived back at the hotel, and nobody was really sure what to do. Rebecca and Desmond wanted to go find a bar for drinks, but one scathing look from William was enough to squash that idea. After a bit of a fight, though, the older man agreed to at least let them go to the hotel bar. A small compromise, and a small victory.

“You coming with us Shaun?” Rebecca asked, already half out of the door.

“No, you go on.” He said, and before he had a chance to add anything else, she and Desmond were gone, leaving him stood awkwardly in the room with William on the phone, and the Hacker looking vaguely pained, but otherwise soundly asleep on one of the twin beds.

He made his way to the small table and unpacked his laptop, thinking about getting some work done, but when he opened the screen and began staring at the words, they all jumbled together and he found himself just… sat there, hands poised above the keyboard, not entirely sure what to do with himself.

From the other side of the room, William huffed angrily, glaring at the phone.

“The board are _not_ at all happy about this.” He stated, already typing away at another number.

“Well what does that mean?” Shaun pressed, when it became clear that the man wasn’t going to elaborate on his own.

“It means, Shaun,” He began, clearly growing more frustrated by the second, “That this little excursion, and our Hackers injury, have cost us too much time and resources already. I am grateful for the rescue, but-”

“But we shouldn’t have bothered?” Guessed Shaun, folding his arms across his chest and remembering just how much that man _annoyed_ him.

“Yes, you shouldn’t have.” William looked back at his phone, ending the discussion. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some more phone calls to make.” He strode out of the room and Shaun sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

_Why does that man have to be so insufferable?_ He thought to himself, closing his laptop and standing up. _We should have left him there though, at least we agree on **something.**_

After a moment of standing there seething, he found his eyes drawn to the girl on the bed. Bruised face and scrunched brows, he almost didn’t recognise her from the teasing, sarcastic hacker who spent all of her day typing away at the computer. Before then, he wouldn’t even have guessed you were combat trained. Not that it was like him to judge that from appearance, of course, but still… it was an odd change of character, he thought.

He drifted over to the bed next to the one you were sleeping on and sunk down. He gently brushed a piece of hair away that had fallen across your face, and almost laughed to himself when he realised how much like a scene in a movie it felt like, especially considering he hadn’t yet moved his hand away.

Slowly, you began to stir, despite only having been asleep for an hour at most. “Mmhh… Shaun?” You mutter, squinting up at the man.

“Well at least you can remember my name, that hit didn’t knock all of the brains out of you apparently.” He deadpanned, making you snicker. “How are you feeling?” He asked, more gently.

“Like death… but, a bit better than... before. How long have I…?”

“About an hour, maybe two.” He responded, checking his watch. “The others are out.”

“I bet they’re anxious about leaving, huh.” You say, wincing as you slowly sit up. “Man, I fucked up…”

“Hey, no you didn’t, this wasn’t your fault.” Shaun cut you off, forcing you to look at him as he said it. "Besides, we achieved what we came here to, and none of us have died... yet."

The last bit made you smirk. "I know that, I just feel like... a liability. All my training, and I still get taken down so easily... it just feels... I don't know."

"Embarrassing?" He guessed.

"Yeah, plus... if I had gone in without Desmond, what would have happened? The mission would have been compromised, and they would have both me and William right now, and-"

"Stop," He cut you off, forcing you to look at him again. "None of that happened. They don't have any of us, you got out of there, and we need to focus on whats happening now, not what  _could_ have happened." 

“Okay." You reply, not entirely convinced. "Shall we go get the others? We should get out of here, they'll be looking for us. Or, Desmond at least.”

“Yeah…” He said somewhat dismissively, making you think the conversation was over, but when you went to get out of bed, he stopped you. “Wait.”

You looked at him questioningly, but then it all became clear. He was leaning forward on the edge of the other bed in a blink; his hands gingerly cradling your face, and as he pressed his lips to yours, the world seemed to stop.

Eventually though, you both needed to breathe, so he pulled away and you rested your foreheads together.

“Well that was…” He cleared his throat, “I um…” You laughed a little, amused to finally see the man who always had something to say be rendered speechless. He pulled his face away from yours, thumb stroking your cheek and eyes gazing at you with an expression that looked almost foreign on his features.

“Shouldn’t we be, uh… packing up?” You say, cheeks burning, and he nods, resigned.

“The others could be back any minute, we really should get out of here.” He adds, and you both stand, going to pack away the computer equipment you had used earlier. This was proving difficult, though, as you found your eyes drawn to him every time he moved, or brushed past you. Which is obviously why you decided the best course of action was to intercept him as he made his way across the room and pull his face to yours once more, crashing your lips together. His hands found your waist, and you were sure you could have stayed like that for much longer, spinning room and pounding skull be damned.

In fact, you would probably have done just that, if Miles senior hadn’t chosen that exact moment to burst back through the door of the room, causing you and Shaun to jump out of your skin, and giving you mere seconds to pretend that nothing had been happening. Easier said than done with pink lips, flushed cheeks, and heavy breathing. If he noticed, though, he didn’t say anything to either of you, simply informed you that since you were awake again, he would fetch the others, and you should get back to the USA and the Temple as soon as possible. And with that, he was out of the door, leaving you and Shaun alone once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry it's been so long since I last updated again!! I promise I have no abandoned this story though, and I never will, so thank you for still reading and leaving kudos, it means so much to see that people are enjoying this random little story I'm creating... ily, and hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later with another update!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this little story! Please don't be too mean if it was awful... I'll try and update as often as possible, I'm a little obsessed with Shaun at the minute hehe... also if you have any requests for other Assassin's Creed characters, please let me know! I'll be starting a requests thing so I'll write a little oneshot for whoever you like... thanks!! <3


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